John O’Regan

Occupation: Clerical OfficerPrimary Sports: Ultra Marathon

Having taken up running in 2001 John O’Regan has gone on to accomplish a host of running achievements. Highlights of his running career include representing his country on 7 occasions, retaining the Irish 24-hrs Championship title in 2012, and completing marathons and ultra marathons on 7 Continents, including highest, lowest, most northern & most southern races in the world.

In August 2009 John was diagnosed with overtraining syndrome as a result of under recovering.

“I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have to rest and recovery.”

John first became aware of heart rate variability (HRV) when he started using the Polar RS800 ‘own optimizer’ and by following it’s reading started to notice improvements. When he replaced his Polar with a Suunto T6D John missed measuring HRV and was keen to find a convenient solution.

After reading about ithlete in a Runner’s World article John quickly realised this convenient, affordable app was the ideal tool to prevent further overtraining by measuring his recovery.

John has now been using ithlete for over 12 months to inform and guide his training. Whilst his training load has not changed as such John feels the quality has improved significantly. This is extremely important to runners such as John who recognise the importance of making the most of the time available.

“I don’t plan rest days and now only take them when told by ithlete. Since using ithlete I’ve maximised my training time and feel that the quality of my sessions has improved. Based on previous results and improvements I’m confident that ithlete will help with achieving my goals.”

As a self-coached runner competing on an international platform John values ithlete’s ability to provide subjective recovery measurement as a reliable second opinion.